Mister X Part 33

She nodded, giving him that faint little smile that came mostly from her eyes. "That engagement is quite a change for Pearl, and for you."

"Me?"

"Because of the way you obviously feel about Pearl."

"I'll cope," Quinn said.

"It'd be easier with a cigar, I bet."

She sat watching him, waiting, the leg still pumping.

He opened the aluminum tube and removed the cigar. Opened the desk drawer again and got out a cutter to snip off the tip. He didn't have to rummage for matches. There was always a book of them next to where he kept his cigars.

The cutter that he used looked like a miniature guillotine. He worked it and was pleased to see that it was still sharp and efficient.

"Ouch!" Addie said. "What brand are you smoking? Marie Antoinettes?"

"It was a gift," he said, holding the cutter up so she could see it clearly and then returning it to the drawer.

"From Pearl?"

"From another cop who liked cigars but had to quit them."

Quinn held the cigar, but he didn't light it.

"Pearl wouldn't mind," Addie said. She didn't seem surprised by his hesitation.

Quinn smiled. "She might."

"She couldn't. She wouldn't know."

"She might."

"It doesn't make any difference now," Addie said. Her tone was patient, as if she were speaking to a contrary child.

"It-"

"No," Addie said calmly, "that's over. It'd be better all around if you recognized that and accepted it."

The psychologist in her coming out.

Quinn sat looking into her eyes, into her smile. A man might become used to that smile warming his world, might become addicted to it. His gaze slid down to her leg, still tapping out its rhythm, its message, softly, softly on the front panel of the desk.

He clamped the cigar between his teeth and struck the match. Touched flame to the tip of the cigar and got it burning smoothly with a couple of deep draws. He leaned back in his chair and relaxed.

"Satisfied?" she asked.

"Almost. I've learned to settle for that. It has to do with recognizing and accepting change."

"There is no almost almost when it comes to satisfaction." The smile again. So knowing and hinting of secrets. So invitingly erotic. when it comes to satisfaction." The smile again. So knowing and hinting of secrets. So invitingly erotic.

She stood up suddenly from the desk, tugged her skirt down, and smoothed it over her thighs. There was an air of embarra.s.sment about her now, but it wasn't real. "Sorry. I shouldn't have broached the subject of you and Pearl. I know how it is-old loves, like old habits, die hard."

"Sometimes they take us with them," Quinn said.

She seemed alarmed. "This conversation is becoming morose."

"I was talking about cigars," he said.

"Thank G.o.d for that."

"Addie, I would never-"

"I know. I didn't really think you would."

She gathered up some papers and stuffed them into a file folder, straightened and aligned whatever was on the desk top, then bent down and picked up her purse. She stayed bent over a few seconds longer than necessary. Quinn knew he was being worked, and she didn't seem to mind if he knew.

She told him good night and walked to the door. She was obviously aware that he was watching her, but she wasn't putting on any kind of show now. All business.

At the door she turned and said, "Maybe we'll make some progress tomorrow."

"On the case," Quinn said.

"Sure. What else would I mean?"

When she was gone, some of the air seemed to go out of the office with her.

Quinn drew on the cigar and tried to blow a smoke ring. He failed. He tried again, without success.

He watched the formless smoke drift toward the ceiling and thought about Addie thinking he might be contemplating suicide because of Pearl.

He thought about G.o.d.

He wished G.o.d would pay more attention to New York.

52.

"The killer is moving up in the world," Fedderman said.

Vitali had called and woken Quinn a few minutes past midnight with the address of the latest Carver victim, Lilly Branston. It was in a towering condo development on Park Avenue. The building was a pre-war honey, with a four-story granite facade topped by a tan brick and ornate pale stone structure thrust into the night sky. There was the usual cl.u.s.ter of radio cars, unmarkeds, and emergency vehicles outside, parked at crazy angles so it looked as if they'd all arrived at once and a ma.s.sive collision had been barely averted.

Quinn nodded h.e.l.lo to a uniformed officer he knew, but used his ID to enter the lobby with Fedderman.

Impressive, the lobby. Cooler than the night. Pink-veined beige marble, brown plush carpeting, and polished copper elevator doors.

"A place like this," Fedderman said, "there's gotta be a doorman."

"There is. Sal said he gets off at ten. The doorman claims he saw the victim leave by herself about six. Didn't see her return."

"Maybe she met her killer and brought him back to her place after ten."

"Maybe the killer knew it was safe after ten," Quinn said, "and came calling on his own." He glanced up and around. "Any security cameras covering the entrance?"

"Yeah, but they're live, and n.o.body was watching the monitors."

Quinn flexed his jaw muscles and nodded.

Mishkin was standing by one of the elevators. His rumpled brown suit appeared too large for him. His eyes were pools of sadness. Even his bushy mustache seemed to droop a little, or maybe it was the mentholated cream caught in it.

"You look tired, Harold," Fedderman said.

"Trying to find some meaning in slaughter wears a person down," Mishkin said. "She's on eighteen." He pressed the elevator's up b.u.t.ton. "This one had a lot to live for. Tragic..."

It was well past midnight, and they were the only ones in the elevator. No one said anything as it ascended to the murder floor. Rising to h.e.l.l-it didn't feel right.

As they stepped from the elevator on eighteen, Quinn noticed an open door down the hall. A uniformed cop stood nearby, and bright light from inside the apartment cast faint moving shadows over the carpeted hall outside the door. Just beyond the open door was a small upholstered bench, and alongside it a tall stone urn with brown artificial pampas gra.s.s protruding from it.

A man about twenty who would always look about twenty at a glance sat slumped on the bench. He was wearing seriously faded and patched jeans, a fresh-looking untucked white shirt with vertical green stripes, and moccasins without socks. His straight brown hair was a tangle that might or might not have been an effort at style. He was staring at the floor with the intensity of a man watching an ant farm.

"That's Stephen Elsinger," Mishkin said. "He's the kid who called nine-one-one. Saw some of what happened through the victim's window. Trust fund baby, lives over on Lexington."

"That's in the next block," Quinn said.

"Stephen's got a powerful telescope," Mishkin said. "He was in the habit of observing the victim."

"Spying on her."

"Stephen wouldn't put it exactly that way, but yeah. She was masturbation material, is my impression."

Quinn liked the sound of this. "He saw her murdered?"

"Not exactly."

Quinn merely grunted, deciding to be patient while the story of what had happened here unfolded.

When they entered the bedroom and Quinn saw the victim, he knew what Mishkin had meant when he said she'd had a lot to live for. Lilly Branston's address suggested she had plenty of money, and despite the gape-mouthed expression of horror on her face, she must have been beautiful. Quinn thought she was a bit older than the other victims, maybe even in her forties. But it was difficult to judge, with her staring eyes and the rictus of her mouth from which her panties, now crumpled on the pillow beside her head, had been removed by the a.s.sistant M.E. The attending examiner wasn't Nift this time, but a middle-aged woman who was tall and storklike yet had innumerable chins. Quinn knew her slightly and thought her name was Norma. She was treating the victim's horribly abused body with a cold precision and professionalism, through which now and then glimmered compa.s.sion and respect. So unlike her boss.

Quinn showed her his ID, which had his name on it, rather than the NYPD shield Renz had supplied.

"I'm Norma," the woman said. She had a high, nasal voice. "I know you from the Kraft case some years back."

"Ah, yes. Where's Nift?"

"You miss Dr. Nift?"

Quinn smiled. "Like a bad case of shingles."

"You know him, then," Norma said. "Dr. Nift is home in bed, and he won't meet Ms. Branston till well after sunrise."

"Seniority," Quinn said.

"Being the boss."

"Being a p.r.i.c.k," Fedderman said.

Norma glanced at him, but nothing changed in her expression. She seemed a nice, if authoritative, woman and looked as if she should be princ.i.p.al of a school where the girls wore uniforms, instead of poking around a dead body.

Sal Vitali took a few steps into the bedroom. "Where's Pearl?"

"I decided to let her sleep," Quinn said. "Addie, too. That way we won't be b.u.mping into each other like zombies tomorrow morning."

He propped his fists on his hips and looked closely at the victim. She was nude and had been bound with strips of torn sheet. Her nipples had been removed. A glaring X X about twelve inches long was carved between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She'd suffered a terrible ear-to-ear slash, creating what looked like a horrible, greedy mouth straight out of a nightmare. about twelve inches long was carved between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She'd suffered a terrible ear-to-ear slash, creating what looked like a horrible, greedy mouth straight out of a nightmare.

Then Quinn noticed something that made the nightmare more poignant and terrible.

He pointed to the white flower tucked in her tangled hair just above her left ear. "Was that there when they found her?"

"Yeah," Norma said. "'Case you're wondering, it's a lily."

"I knew that," Fedderman said.

Norma glanced at him skeptically and continued to pick and probe.

"Our killer likes to pun," Fedderman said.

Norma said, "I don't concern myself with that kinda thing."

"Nift would," Quinn said. "He likes to play detective."

Norma shrugged. "Play is the operative word." is the operative word."

There was plenty of spilled blood, but it had the same controlled look as that of the earlier victims. The killer had been deft and knew how and how much they were going to bleed, and how to avoid the blood as much as possible.

"Do you think the killer might have some kind of medical background, the way he seems able to predict and avoid arterial blood?" Quinn asked Norma.

"Not necessarily," she said. "Some reading, and of course practice, and it would be pretty simple to attain a butcher's skill."

"But he'd get some some blood on him." blood on him."

"It would seem inevitable."

"Looks like he washed up in the bathroom when he was done," Sal said. "Crime scene unit's gonna check the basin and shower drains. What they found with all their dusting for prints were mostly glove smudges, and a lot of the apartment looks like it's been wiped."